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ISET-International is relieved to report that our colleagues at ISET-Nepal and their families are safe. We nonetheless recognize that there remains much risk in the next few weeks from health-related issues due to the lack of services. We also recognize that, though all whom we know are well, there has been a deep wound in the soul of Nepal and that our friends are living this wound every day. Our hearts and minds are with them in these tough weeks, even months to come. For the short term, we hope the aftershocks will soon come to a rest. It will be important for all of those affected to feel safe again in their homes. When the immediate crisis subsides, we hope to work with our friends and colleagues to begin the process of “building forward” rather than just “building back”. Risk reduction needs to be a key factor in the post crisis rebuilding effort. We hope that the ISET Network’s deep experience in understanding the profile of risk and recovery in Nepal can serve the people as they build for an improved future. If you would like to support the relief effort, we suggest the charities listed in this link.

Puedes leer este blog en español al final de la página ISET-International staff conducted a training workshop in Tabasco, Mexico from 19-21 November 2014 for the Mexican Red Cross. The goal of the workshop was to help Red Cross staff and attendees better understand and integrate a participatory cost-benefit analysis (PCBA) in their evaluation of flood resilience projects. PCBA is a policy tool that enables policy-makers to identify more feasible resilience projects to implement when communities have several competing options in mind. It considers the financial, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the projects to be evaluated, and through participatory deliberation it provides a scoring of the alternative policy options, allowing policy-makers and the communities they serve to make difficult decisions. PCBA does not require much technical knowledge, financial resources, or time to be successfully implemented. ISET-International has pioneered the implementation of PCBA in several communities in South Asia and South East Asia, tailoring the PCBA to the needs of the Mexican Red Cross for the Tabasco workshop. The final product of the workshop is a pocket guide to assist facilitators in the future when working with communities in the field, which is available at http://i-s-e-t.org/resources/training/pcba-guide-spanish.html ANALISIS PARTICIPATIVO COSTO-BENEFICIO: TALLER EN TABASCO, MEXICO Personal de ISET-International llevó a cabo un taller de capacitación en Tabasco, México del 19 al 21 de noviembre de 2014 para personal de la Cruz Roja Mexicana. El objetivo del taller fue ayudar a los participantes a integrar el análisis participativo costo-beneficio (APCB) en su evaluación de proyectos de resiliencia frente a las inundaciones. EL APCB es una herramienta que ayuda a los tomadores de decisiones a identificar los proyectos de resiliencia más factibles para ser implementados cuando las comunidades tienen varias opciones en mente. El APCB toma en cuenta los costos y beneficios financieros, sociales y ambientales de los proyectos a ser evaluados y a través de un proceso de decisión participativo asigna una calificación a cada alternativa ayudando a los tomadores de decisiones y a las comunidades a realizar una decisión final. El APCB no requiere mucho conocimiento técnico, recursos financieros, o gran cantidad de tiempo para la implementación. ISET-International ha liderado la implementación del APCB en varias comunidades en el sur y sureste del Asia. El APCB realizado en Tabasco, México fue adaptado a las necesidades de la Cruz Roja Mexicana. El producto final del taller es una guía de bolsillo que ayude a los facilitadores en el futuro cuando realicen su trabajo en campo con las comunidades. La guía está disponible en http://i-s-e-t.org/resources/training/pcba-guide-spanish.html

Read our new article “Resilience projects as experiments: Implementing climate change resilience in Asian cities” in the journal Climate and Development. “There have been activities building resilience in the past, but using other words or program titles,” noted one ACCCRN (Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network) partner from Semarang, Indonesia. As my co-authors and I began meeting with ACCCRN partners to reflect on our experiences of project implementation, observations like this seemed to come up time and time again. They are right, of course. Most resilience projects encompass types of activities that international development projects have supported for years—such as community resource management, rainwater harvesting, early warning systems, participatory planning, or revolving loan schemes, to name a few. We find that this observation generally provokes one of two responses in people. The first is anxiety. Many local implementers tend to worry: with all these new tools and expert advisers, shouldn’t we be able to find something new, something totally innovative, to tackle emerging urban climate vulnerabilities? Are we doing something wrong? The other typical response is cynicism. In this view, “resilience” is the new banner under which to hang the same old approaches. It is spin, more than substance. (This critique may be justified to some degree, since the term “resilience” is so frequently invoked among international development agencies without attention to the complex systems theory that underpins it.) Even as ACCCRN partners ourselves, we often struggled to make a compelling counterargument. We did feel there was something about our resilience projects that made them more impactful than the sum of their activities. But we often failed to articulate what. If we are doing the same things, what makes resilience projects different? In 2012, we embarked upon a process of facilitated learning with a wide range of ACCCRN project implementers. Focus group sessions, interviews, and facilitated workshops helped us collectively reflect on the most significant changes from ACCCRN projects, why these were important, and how implementers made them possible. Many of us did identify tangible improvements in lives and livelihoods as a result of ACCCRN projects. Yet projects were seen as most effective when they: Helped to facilitate a shared understanding of urban systems. In a number of ACCCRN cities, partners now understand the multiple and interlinked causes of recent flood disasters, including formal development of low-lying areas. Strengthened collaborations and networks. Stakeholder groups that were previously rivals are sharing information, comparing analysis, and deliberating on key topics on a regular basis. Provided public access to information and/or generated new information. Reliable water quality and flood monitoring systems are allowing stakeholders to act independently and collectively. These may be spurring demand for greater access to public data, plans, and budgets. Provided space for new, experimental approaches. Stakeholders have been able to try, fail, and learn from new approaches to providing local services, restoring ecological services, or managing shared resources. Promoted greater engagement of citizens with the state. Stakeholder coalitions have been mobilized and in some cases prevented ill-conceived development projects from moving forward. Supported the use of climate change information by city institutions. Governments or other actors are applying information about climate change to help to improve decision-making around new investments and spatial plans. These results echo insights from studies of socio-ecological systems, which recognizes the capacity to learn and reorganize as a basic characteristic of resilience. What does it mean for us to distinguish resilience projects from any project that enhances the capacity to learn and reorganize? For one thing, it shifts the focus from what you are doing to how you are doing it. Development organizations are always looking for technical “best practices” to replicate across contexts. But the same technical intervention in one place may have completely different results in another place, depending on who is involved and how the project is facilitated. Our findings suggest that the approach, rather than the activity itself, is what we should be replicating. In a way then, the cynics are right; good development practitioners have known this for years. Resilience thinking underlines the need to focus not on delivering robust technical results, but on providing a platform for learning, interaction, information sharing, coalition building, and generating accountability. “Resilience projects as experiments: Implementing climate change resilience in Asian cities“ is available open access on our website. The article is co-authored by Sarah Orleans Reed, Richard Friend, Jim Jarvie, Pakamas Thinphanga, Phong Tran, Dilip Singh, Ratri Sutarto, and Justin Henceroth. The authors would like to thank the Rockefeller Foundation for their support of ACCCRN and our research, as well as APCO International for supporting the open access release of this article. We are most grateful to all of those who participated in the research or provided feedback throughout the process.

Originally posted on: http://acccrn.org/news-and-events/news As we wrapped up our first ACCCRN Vietnam-Thailand City Learning Exchange in Bangkok, Dr. Paul from Thailand Environmental Institute (TEI) underlined the events’ significance: our trip with 5 Vietnamese representatives of Can Tho and Da Nang Cities to meet with leaders from Hat Yai, Ayutthaya, and Thung Song marked one step in raising the level of dialogue between local ASEAN governments, to coordinate not just on economic development but on sustainable development. The exchange posed the question: How can ASEAN cities urbanize to provide benefits equitably and sustainably, while avoiding the worst impacts of climate change? The big question on the Vietnam team’s minds was about last year’s “Mega Flood” in Thailand and its iconic images of inundated streets, homes, and factories. As Dr. Thongchai Roachanakanan from the Office of Climate Change Convention remarked, the flood produced one of the largest economic losses in human history. What were the main causes of this devastating flood, and how could its worst impacts be avoided in Vietnam? As we learned throughout the three day visit, the answer to this question varies considerably between different stakeholders in Thailand: it is an open, ongoing dialogue, and major challenge for the country as a whole. On-the-Ground Following 2011 “Mega Flood” in Ayutthaya We began our exchange in Ayutthaya, the former capital city of Siam – a UNESCO World Heritage site and center of Thailand’s industrial heartland – 80 km north of Bangkok in the Chao Praya river basin, where the municipal mayor and provincial governors warmly greeted our team. Representatives shared with us how floodwaters broke the ancient city’s floodwalls in October 2011, submerging the entire old city for weeks, and how the community mobilized in response. With support from the national government, the city and province plan to rebuild a stronger, higher wall around Ayutthaya, as well as raising the road to its west to protect the neighboring industrial/economic zones. Engineers have designed a mobile wall that can be erected quickly following a flood warning, but is retractable to prevent obscuring the city’s famous views. Installing a wall around the inner area of Ayutthaya would cost 2,000 million bhat (65 million USD). The government is still in the process of mobilizing resources. This is quite a hefty price tag, but as Mr. Ky Quang Vin from Can Tho commented while gazing at one of Ayutthaya’s ancient Wats, “the wall is very expensive – but if I had that [wat] in my city, I would want to protect it too.” Flood Barriers for All at Bang Pa-In Industrial Estate? We saw another formidable new flood barrier a few hours later, in Bang Pa-In Industrial Estate located between Bangkok and Ayutthaya city. Like the ancient city and the six other industrial estates in the province, Bang Pa-In was inundated last year when pressure from floodwater broke the existing flood protection barrier. The new design stands 6 m behind a surrounding channel and has multiple levels of protection to slow the flood if the outer barrier is breached. It will cost 400 million THB to construct the wall around the 11 km estate. Estate representatives have already presented this plan to its foreigner investors to reassure them of their investments’ safety. Though the wall is still under construction, from the inside I felt like I was peering outwards to the other side from a great, fortified castle. “HOW CAN ASEAN CITIES URBANIZE TO PROVIDE BENEFITS EQUITABLY AND SUSTAINABLY, WHILE AVOIDING THE WORST IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE? “ In both Ayutthaya and Bang Pa-In, we questioned our hosts about what would happen on the “other side” of the walls. We had read, for instance, about local communities and NGOs who had filed lawsuits against one of the industrial estates because of concerns that the new infrastructure would increase the risk in surrounding areas. Ayutthaya government representatives said that they are already working to improve drainage in the area west of the city. They are also working with local communities to build their capacity to prepare for and respond to floods, for instance by using stilts to raise their homes from the ground and enhancing evacuation systems. In Bang Pa-In, several local officials joined the meeting and expressed their solidarity with the flood protection measures of the industrial estate. Their main concern was that the factories continued to function and that their constituents could continue to find work inside the walls. The daylong trip gave us a lot to think about that evening at dinner. Can these kinds of flood protection measures prevent damage in the future? And can they do so in an equitable way? Flooding’s Implications for Vietnam Dr. Thongchai from the Office of Climate Change Convention is skeptical. In his presentation to the team on Friday morning, he painted a picture of Bangkok over the last 300 years, describing how this swampy, low-lying floodplain had become a city connected by canals to one linked by roads and layers of concrete. Although city plans include flood ways, these areas now contain major housing developments. Urban expansion in Thailand’s central plains was the main culprit of flood risk in 2011, he argued, but up until now building costly protection infrastructure and floodways has been the government’s principle response — a response that is not coordinated between municipalities, companies, farmers and other stakeholders. “ANY EFFORT THAT IS EMBARKED UPON BY ONE MUNICIPALITY ALONE WILL NOT ULTIMATELY SUCCEED.” Vietnam still has the opportunity to avoid this kind of situation. Nevertheless, Vu Canh Toan from NISTPASS in Vietnam reminded us that Vietnamese economic and institutional incentives strongly favor urbanization in low lying areas, making its urbanization follow the pattern set by Thailand. Climate change adds new dangers to this already complicated situation, according to the presenters. One aspect of Dr. Thongchai’s research is particularly troubling, suggesting Thailand may experience stronger storms coming from the south in coming years. Vietnam meanwhile is considered to be even more vulnerable to climate impacts than Thailand – a very sobering prospect. Knowledge Sharing From Southern Thailand We were lucky to be joined by colleagues who have been working with TEI on flood risk mitigation – Mr. Somcot Puttachart and Mr. Somporn Mueangthong from the ACCCRN city of Hat Yai city and Mayor Songchai Wongwatcharadamrong of Thung Song municipality, who shared some ideas based on their work in Southern Thailand. In Hat Yai, stakeholders from municipal and provincial levels have formed a Climate Change Learning Center. They have designed and implemented a sophisticated flood early warning system that can be monitored online by anyone, making it possible for everyone to have reliable information and prepare themselves. They noted that Hat Yai city cannot act alone but needed an integrated approach for dealing with its larger water basin if it was to significantly decrease flood risk. Thung Song municipality has been leading similar initiatives for over a decade and has established an Integrated Trang River Basin Management Plan between multiple provinces. Mayor Songchai described the complexity of working across municipal authorities, but progress is being made. In one instance, working with several different officials, Thung Song municipality has been able to coordinate the restoration of an authority-crossing canal whose flow had been altered and obstructed by encroachment. Key to these discussions was the word “integrated”. Any effort that is embarked upon by one municipality alone, remarked Dr. Thongchai, will not ultimately succeed. Building coordination requires local action to test and demonstrate successes, build partnerships, and eventually move upwards. In doing so, we can learn from each other – across regions and across countries.

By Tho Nguyen and Danielle Cleal – ISET-International, Vietnam The Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific Forum in Bangkok from 11-13 February 2015 was the first in a series of congress platforms that aim to promote partnership and actions for urban resilience in the Asia-Pacific. An addition to the Resilient Cities – The Annual Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation series by ICLEI in Bonn Germany, the forum tries to drive more attention to one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change. Above: 2015 Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific Forum. Photo credit: ICLEI This conference gathered about 300 participants from 30 countries, including city mayors/vice mayors and municipal officials, national government offices, academic institutions, NGOs and international organizations. There were 14 Vietnamese attending the event, including representatives from UNISDR, GIZ, ISET, NISTPASS, ENDA, Da Nang CCCO, and Hue Centre for International Development. The event included five plenary sessions, nine parallel sessions and four side events, discussing different aspects of urban resilience in Asia-Pacific such as political context, urban risks, planning and implementation, financing, adaptation through nexus, collaboration, research-policy linkage, and pro-poor UCR. It also featured the official launch of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), a membership-based platform aimed to support individual practitioners, and build partnerships with institutions and country networks for climate change resilience across Asia. This was a very successful launch with bout 200 new members signing up for the network during the event. Above: Panelist discussion during the ACCCRN Network Launch. Photo credit: ICLEI The event concluded with the Bangkok Call for Action towards Urban Resilience in Asia-Pacific, when the Mayors and municipal leaders in the conference called for a more concerted and coordinated action to build resilience and adapt to the intensifying impacts of climate change. The Call for Action will be delivered at the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan 14-18 March 2015. ISET would like to share a few take-away points from this event to our UCR-CoP community: Urban problems are becoming more complex, which requires solutions to constantly evolve. As part of this evolving process we need to start engaging a more diverse range of stakeholders, especially the most vulnerable communities on the ground. Cities need to invest in resilience or pay for recovery. Urbanization should be considered as part of the engine of growth. There is a gap to be addressed in building resilience, that is the gap between planning and implementation, and between law and reinforcement. There is no shortage of funding, there is just a lack of financial engineering. We need to create system that allows money to flow where it needs to. There is a lack of national urban policy across countries. There are two different lanes that can link research with policy change—the activist and the engagement lanes—and it is important to maneuver carefully between these two lanes. There is an increasing need to address the inequality question in working with resilience, because the most important characteristic of resilience is whether it includes the most vulnerable in the city. Resilience process must make sure that those most at risk must have the most privilege rights, including access right as stated in the UN’s Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992). Sustainability of resilience actions depends on community ownership of the process. It is hoped that the commitment and determination expressed by city leaders, as well as the level of risk concern raised by all stakeholders at the conference will lay the foundation for deliberate and inclusive actions to build climate resilience for Asian-Pacific cities. You can learn more about the first Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific Forum by following the link here, and download the summary of the event here. Originally posted on UCR-CoP

By Tho Nguyen and Thanh Ngo, ISET-Vietnam More than 20 core members of UCR-COP gathered at our planning meeting in Hanoi on March 03, 2015 for some challenging planning exercise, and nailed down specific targets to work towards in 2015. The participants—including Urban Development Agency, UN-HABITAT, BTC, The Asia Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Spatial Decision, VUPDA, NISTPASS, GIZ and ISET— looked back at what were planned for UCR-CoP in 2014, highlighted major successes, and discussed the challenges to these successes. Although UCR-CoP had created a lot of excitement in many parts of Vietnam in 2014 as demonstrated on the blog, the need for a strengthened sharing culture among members and the lack of specific and feasible group tasks for members to work towards were examples of pull factors raised by the members. Therefore, while it is still the overall goal of UCR-CoP to promote knowledge generation and build capacity in urban climate resilience, to mainstream UCR into planning process, and to influence UCR policy in Vietnam, UCR-CoP members agreed that we should specify some very concrete priority actions and joint products to deliver by the end of 2015. Brainstorming exercises and discussions pointed to two priority themes of UCR-CoP in 2015: Urban Development Systems, and Urban Planning. This gave rise to the formation of two thematic working groups under UCR-CoP: The Urban Development System Group—led by The Asia Foundation and UN-HABITAT—will review the current laws and regulations in Vietnam—such as the Planning Law, the Urban Development Strategy, and the Classification of Urban Centers—in light of the emerging needs to align them with urban resilience purposes. The Urban Planning Group—led by UDA and ISET—will focus on understanding the relationship between the worsening urban flooding in cities of Vietnam and the urban planning process. The working groups will work together to organize multiple shared learning dialogues throughout 2015, and towards a joint policy brief to share at the Urban Day in November 2015. Signing up to either or both of these thematic working groups is open to all members of UCR-CoP in the poll below. You are encouraged to signed up before March 20, 2015. Specific schedule and agenda for each group’s interactions will be clearer after this date. The working groups committed to regularly updating their activities and results on the UCR-CoP blog and shared calendar. And to improve member engagement of UCR-CoP in 2015, all members are encouraged to level up their blog engagement, and take initiative to connect UCR-CoP with any other formal or informal network that they are a part of by contacting ucrmoderator@gmail.com. On behalf of facilitators of UCR-CoP, we would like to thank all members for your support and contribution, and we look forward to create some more noise with you in the year 2015!

We are proud to announce that on January 22, 2015 ISET-Nepal was listed as the 25th top think tank in the Southeast Asia and Pacific region by the University of Pennsylvania’s 2014 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report. With the increasing number of think tanks worldwide, it is an honor to be recognized in the 2014 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report. This annual report is described as “the insider’s guide to the global marketplace of ideas.” Over 6,000 think tanks were considered. They were then ranked by a panel of experts and peer institutions according to regional categories and areas of study. Organizations were selected for their excellence of staff, leadership, research outputs, and usefulness of information in public engagement, among other considerations. You may reference the final report to search for other top research organizations around the world. The 2014 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report is the second time ISET-Nepal has been recognized as an outstanding think tank. In June 2014, ISET-Nepal received a Think Tank Initiative Award. Ajaya Dixit, president of ISET-Nepal, briefly discusses the development of think tanks in South Asia and Nepal in this interview. Congratulations, ISET-Nepal, and thank you for your continuing role in the ISET Network!

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Dear Colleagues, I am pleased to announce the publication of a new article entitled “Resilience projects as experiments: Implementing climate change resilience in Asian cities,” in the journal Climate and Development. The article is available open access at this link. In this article, we seek to address a question raised frequently by observers of resilience initiatives: what distinguishes a “resilience” project, supported under initiatives like the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), from the myriad of international development projects implementing similar sets of activities (ranging from mangrove reforestation, rainwater harvesting, early warning systems, participatory planning, etc.)? As one ACCCRN partner described, “there have been activities building resilience in the past, but using other words or program titles.” Through a process of facilitated learning among ACCCRN partners, we find that building the capacity to learn and reorganize is what ultimately distinguishes any initiative as contributing to resilience. While some ACCCRN projects did provide direct tangible benefits to certain groups of actors, projects were seen as most effective when they helped facilitate a shared understanding of urban systems; strengthened collaborations and networks; provided public access to information and/or generated new information; promoted greater engagement of citizens with the state; and supported the use of climate change information by city institutions. Achieving these outcomes relied on flexible, learning-based approaches to project implementation, described by earlier development studies scholars as “experiments.” This emphasis on viewing projects as experiments to build capacity to learn and reorganize presents a counterpoint to the more conventional concepts of “implementing” resilience. It also implies that project activities themselves do not build resilience and therefore cautions against promoting replicable, “best practice” approaches across contexts. On the other hand, certain facilitation approaches (expert coaching, participatory assessments, and experimental designs) do work effectively across contexts in building capacity to learn and reorganize—and therefore in building resilience. The article is co-authored by myself, Richard Friend, Jim Jarvie, Pakamas Thinphanga, Phong Tran, Dilip Singh, Ratri Sutarto, and Justin Henceroth. We would like to thank the Rockefeller Foundation for their support of ACCCRN and our research, as well as APCO International for supporting the open access release of this article. We are extremely grateful to all of those who participated in the research and/or provided insightful suggestions during the research process. Please feel free to share this article widely. We welcome your questions and feedback in the comments section below. Best regards, Sarah O. Reed Urban Programs Advisor

Provincial governments and national-level cities need to update their Climate Action Plans, according to MoNRE’s recent guidelines. But an ISET-led study suggests the greatest weakness of Climate Action Plans is that they are not tied to local implementation measures. The study looked at the experience of 9 provinces with local Climate Action Plans (CAP) completed between 2011 and 2013. The comparison shows that the quality of the plans varies a lot between different provinces. The best examples of CAPs compare favourably with good international practices, but other plans have weak vulnerability or risk assessments, or limited treatment of uncertainty, variability and extreme events in climate projections. Most of the CAPs were not well linked to other government planning and expenditure measures, like Socio-Economic Development Plans or sectoral plans. Even if the Climate Action Plans are well prepared, they cannot be implemented if they are not linked to other local planning and development controls. Recent national policy decisions such as the Ministry of Planning and Investment Decision 1485 QĐ-BKHĐT (Oct. 17, 2013) and the Ministry of Construction Decision 2623 QĐ-BXD (Dec. 31, 2013) require local governments to consider climate change in their planning activities. More effort needs to be made to ensure that Climate Action Plan recommendations are carefully prioritized and confirmed by local leaders so that they can be implemented through other local planning and public expenditure mechanisms that already exist. There is increasing national and international interest in funding practical, high priority climate adaptation measures at the local level. But local governments need to use their Climate Action Plans to demonstrate they have thoroughly analyzed climate vulnerabilities and risks in order to justify priority projects. The Climate Action Plan is a key tool for local governments to reduce their climate risks. For more information, see the policy brief and the full report from ISET, CliTech and NISTPASS here.

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Tho Nguyen and Danielle Cleal, ISET-Vietnam Original post by urbanclimatevn.com It was great to see almost 30 UCR-CoP participants get together for the final UCR-CoP event of 2014 to discuss flood management issues in the urban planning and development process in Vietnam. On Monday, November 24, participants met at the office of the Associations of Cities of Vietnam to listen to three insightful presentations offering practical lessons for urban development and planning, in the face of climate change. Participants from nearly 15 organizations (made up of academia, private sector, local and national government and international organizations) from throughout Vietnam (Hanoi, Da Nang, Hue, Binh Dinh and Ha Tinh) also had the opportunity to engage in discussions about the urban planning and development process in Vietnam, its impacts on flood management, and how methods and tools could better feed into the planning and policy decisions at both the local and national levels. The section below presents a snapshot of each of the presentations including a summary of the discussions that followed: Flood modeling for urban planning decisions in central Vietnam – presented by Dr. Phong Tran (ISET) Dr. Phong shared with participants the results of a recent flood-modeling project that assessed flood levels and the flood drainage capacity of Da Nang under different climate change and urbanization scenarios. The results of the model revealed that there are many issues related to the current urban development plan of Da Nang City, highlighting that if urban development in low-lying floodplains was to proceed, in the context of climate change it may: exacerbate flooding; alter flood patterns; destroy local assets and livelihoods; reduce land prices and attraction for investors; and create a range of other issues for the current and future generations of Da Nang. Above: Dr. Phong sharing application of flood modeling in urban planning decisions in Da Nang Dr. Phong discussed that a large challenge that is often faced by researchers is getting the support of decision-makers to incorporate research findings into future planning decisions. Dr. Phong noted for this project they successfully overcame this challenge, by strategically involving relevant decision-makers and technical partners from the beginning of the project. As a result of this early collaboration, the project succeeded in promoting practical change, with the government making modifications to the Da Nang Urban Master Plan until 2030 with vision to 2050, based on the results of the model and the associated recommendations. During the discussion it was raised that while the model is just one of many tools that could be used to inform urban development, this project has also helped decision-makers understand they can no longer continue carrying out urban development in a conventional way. The “Da Nang Hydrology and Urban Development Simulation Model” was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) program. The project ran for over two years through to June 30, 2013, and was implemented by the Da Nang Department of Construction (DOC), CCCO Da Nang and the Institute for Social and Environmental Transition-International. Cost-benefit analysis in urban development, from the Da Nang Alternative Development Pathways Project – presented by Dr. Tran Huu Tuan, Hue University of Economics Dr. Tuan’s presented the results of a cost-benefit analysis of three different measures designed to build climate change resilience in Da Nang City: raising the elevation of houses, raising road elevation and upgrading the city’s early warning system. Dr. Tuan demonstrated to participants that the cost-benefit analysis (expressed in terms of reduced or avoided damages) showed that all three measures are not only economically beneficial, but the economic benefit is also likely to increase with flood intensity, which according to Vietnam climate change scenarios is likely to be the case, with flood levels expected to increase in intensity in the coming decades. The results of the study opened up a range of questions among participants as to what are the optimal and feasible soft and hard measures that cities and households can apply to be more resilient to future floods, given that many areas are already half built or complete and that it is impossible to erase what had been done in the past. While no solutions were put forward, it was recommended that future cost benefit analysis should look beyond the physical or tangible values and also include the social, financial, managerial, and institutional facets of resilience. The Alternative Development Pathways Project is funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, implemented by ISET in coordination with the Hue University and Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG), India . Initial findings of the causes and effects of urban development in floodplain areas – Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tung, Hue Planning Institute Mr. Tung presented the findings of a case study looking at the impacts of flooding on a new urban area, An Van Duong, in Thua Thien Hue province. An Van Duong was originally an area of vast low-lying paddy fields, however in recent years it has been developed into an urban area. The study examined the affects of two historic flood events in 2009 and 2013 on the area of An Van Duong. Mr. Tung shared with participants the results of the study, which highlighted three key factors that led to the intensification of flooding in An Van Duong during these flood events: intense rainfall, the failure of the hydropower reservoir and the altered landscape, as a result of urbanization. Above: Mr. Tung sharing initial results from flood case study in the An Van Duong peri-urban area in Thua Thien Hue province During discussions, participants agreed that policy-makers and urban planners face significant challenges in making practical and strategic decisions – in the context of future uncertainties and economic trade-offs. Participants discussed how these challenges are present in all decision-making processes – whether it is when making a decision about the elevation of a building or considering the design of a new urban development area. This presentation is the result from “Reducing Climate Risks from Peri-Urban Development in Vietnamese Cities” project, funded by the Rockefeller foundation, implemented by ISET in coordination with CCCO in Can Tho, Binh Dinh province, Da Nang and Thua Thien Hue provincial People’s Committee. Copies of the presentations from the event are now available on the events pageof the UCR-Cop website. The meeting minutes will be shared with all UCR-CoP participants in the coming week. As a co-facilitator of the UCR-CoP, ISET again thanks all those who attended for their enthusiastic contributions. We look forward to continuing to work with you in 2015. If you would like to continue these exciting discussions, please leave your comments below, or email ucrmoderator@gmail.com. We’re eager to hear your suggestions and ideas related to these topics.